Civil Engineering Magazine

Cities of the Future: Reimagining Our World offers an exciting glimpse into the urban future. The new IMAX movie, made by MacGillivray Freeman Films, is ASCE's follow-up to 2017's Dream Big: Engineering Our World, also made by MacGillivray Freeman. The movie is scheduled to open at museums and other venues around the country on Feb. 16, following a screening at ASCE's annual convention in Chicago in October. During the lead-up to the premiere, Civil Engineering spoke with Paul Lee, P.E., ENV SP, M.ASCE, one of the civil engineers featured in the film, to preview what the movie's vision on the big screen might mean for the profession.

Within the University of California San Diego's Franklin Antonio Hall, soaring glass ceilings spill sunlight into three-story atriums, and a monumental steel spiral staircase appears to defy gravity in the main concourse. Throughout, the building seamlessly integrates into San Diego's natural environment. Franklin Antonio Hall, the latest addition to UC San Diego's Jacobs School of Engineering, provides a flexible and collaborative environment that will fuel the next generation of cutting-edge research and innovation.

As the transition to electric vehicles accelerates, civil engineers are helping transit agencies make it happen. Such efforts require careful planning and proactive measures with multiple parties to ensure that EVs get the power they need, when and where they need it. It also involves thousands of miles of new transmission lines, structures to support charging and energy storage systems, and strategies to address unique fire safety concerns.

A World War II anti-aircraft bunker in the Heiligengeistfeld area of Hamburg, Germany, had seemingly been there for so long that most of the local inhabitants came to accept it as just another part of the neighborhood. Built by forced labor in Hamburg's St. Pauli district during 1942 and 1943, the Flakturm IV bunker served as one of the city's two major anti-aircraft command centers during the war. Because it was fortified to withstand heavy bombing, the structure also served as an air raid shelter for up to 25,000 civilians.

Precedent-setting design, testing, and construction processes culminated in Ascent, currently the world's tallest mass timber hybrid structure.